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JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE, vol.124, no.2, pp.1419-1425, 2012 (SCI-Expanded)
The nanocomposite materials were prepared using serpentine as filler and polypropylene (PP) as the matrix in the presence of maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (PP-g-MA) compatibilizer. The melt intercalation was carried out following serpentine modification with a quaternary salt of cetyl-trimethyl-ammonium bromide. The structure of nanocomposites was shown by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies. Thermal analysis performed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) demonstrated that the nanocomposites have higher percentage crystallinity when compared to neat PP. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) revealed that the storage and loss moduli values of the nanocomposites are better than those of the matrix resin. Tensile properties of nanocomposites are significantly different from PP, e.g., the Young's modulus of the nanocomposite with 2 wt % serpentine and 6 wt % PP-g-MA (PP-2,6Q) was found to be 2065 MPa, i.e., nearly 190.8% increase over the PP matrix. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012